Pretentious Thoughts of a PostTheorist

Wellness on Graduation Day

Graduation Day 2005. A Day I Dread. I hate graduation ceremonies. To me, they are events in which an institution (rather than a community) attempts to enact a meaningful ritual, a rite de passage if you will…and they are dull and endless. I never went to any of mine, except those for my alternative high school and my junior high school, but I would have been happy to miss those. I found myself clinging to experiences I wasn't sure were mine. I went to my brother's graduation from Harvard, which ended up okay as I got to stand quite near Jackie Onassis as Carolyn was also graduating.

How many ways can one say congratulations before the oratory descends into personal narratives that are not that interesting? Or reveal pathology?

Well it started out well. A Buddhist monk, who actually lives on Staten Island, gave the invocation. A delight to see in someone in orange (rather than the dark suits and robes of everyone else on the dais). He offered some words that he suggested “might have relevance, but then again they might not have any at all.” He quoted Fred Rogers and Rilke and Rumi which seemed quite suitable. And then it went downhill. The female administrators representing the college and the university spoke meekly into the microphone, attempting to relate their own triumphs of self-betterment to those of the students. The ceremony was going long, even before the surprise guest speakers showed up: Chuck Schumer (who wants to continue to be senator) and Anthony Weiner (who wants to be mayor). They boomed loudly into the microphone, literally waking up the faculty who nodded in front of the dais, in great contrast to the female speakers who whispered. Schumer gave the same speech he gave last year apparently. The event was going long. The students were restless; the parents were concerned about their lunch reservations at the island’s finest restaurants.

Then came the keynote speaker, Erica Jong. I was excited to hear her, as I knew her to be controversial, even though when I re-read Fear of Flying as part of my research into cultural events of the early 70s, I realized something. It wasn’t that the novel was dated, it was almost impossible to read. As a roman a clef, the protagonist is virtually unbearable, cloying, embarrassingly self-analytical, who drains sex and fantasy of any eroticism and then complains of the dearth of pleasure. They were warning signs that her address might be an event to endure, but she is the mother-in-law of a faculty member I respect so one hoped she had mellowed into a distinguished poet, writer, and essayist, one who would be critical of contemporary right wing culture. Giving the students one last encouragement to maintain (or finally adopt) a critical stance...

Well I was right and also frighteningly wrong. She began expressing the need for clarity and truth and warning about how our current administration is lying to us at the same time it insists that it is speaking the truth when its mouthpieces state that they are guided by peace and democracy. The Orwellian emphasis of her speech was right on, and the radical faculty looked at each other and nodded, some mustered the energy to clap. But then it went downhill—Jong attempted an analogy, by comparing the recent publicity hoax of Tom Cruise’s new love (with Katie Holmes to sell their movies). Her point, that we as a populace, are being lied to by our leaders be they celebrities or elected leaders, was lost on me, when she also extended her indictment to new age phonies (I felt bad for the Buddhist monk, who was the real thing, but he also made a living by bending the meanings of words). New age phonies are not as pernicious as Karl Rove, and the use of the word “wellness” is not an offense akin to “transfer cases” instead of body bags. Tom Cruise’s hiding of his probable homosexuality in order to sell movies is wrong, but it is not akin to insisting the weapons of mass destruction are hidden in order to justify war. But Jong, in her bizarre yellow glasses, repeated her weird analogy, as if repetition would make it sensible. She spoke for the need to be clear, yet a dense fog of misguided discourse surrounded her place on the dais.

As I learned later, many parents started booing her anti-Bush lines (one yelling that this was treason). As Jong went on, and discussed her own place in American literature (23 books apparently—lets face it, most people who publish that often and are only in their 60s, are not always going to write the best books—they have just become convinced that every thought of theirs is stunning), quoting herself, and then went on attacking our government, the students began clapping in the brief pauses in the middle of her sentences. I thought that this was shameful behavior at first: the students were disrespecting her and she deserved to be listened to. But now I realize she was not showing the students any respect, and as I know so well you can’t clobber them over the head with one's own educated radical views and how silly they are to believe the mainstream media and its talking heads. You have to provide ways to be critical.

Jong thought this applause was related to the brilliance of her every phrase, even as it seemed so similar to her previous line. A smile would show on her face. Yet the students were applauding because they hoped she might be finishing.

The woman’s solipsism had inoculated her against reality. She thought the parents’ boos were cheers, and the students’ applause an encouragement to go on and make pronouncements about every issue. And even as her outlook was a leftist one (albeit an articulate one) she insisted it wasn’t about right and left anymore! I hate that: if you are a leftist, please stand up and say so. Except I suppose it is okay if she insists that she is not a leftist, because I actually think she has gone loony.

And this is one of the effects of the Bush regime, it makes edgy smart people go bonkers and indulge in rant and raves that one can become deluded are articulate responses to the madness of our government’s policies. New age people who talk about wellness might be annoying to one’s sharpened Upper West Side mind when one has read a lot of Freud and Lacan (or Zizek one is really in the know), but its really not the part of the problem. We could all use a bit of wellness right now.

GWB's iPod

Okay its a trend upon learning that the President has an iPod, but lets think of some of his favorite tunes he listens to while mountain biking (other than My Sharona -- I always hated that song!).

White Lines--Grandmaster Flash
Casey Jones--Greatful Dead
One Bourbon, One Shot, and One Beer--George Thorogood
I've Been Everywhere Man--Johnny Cash
Is That All There Is--Peggy Lee
100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall--traditional
Tequila Sunrise--The Eagles
All My Rowdy Friends Are Comin' Over Tonight--Hank Williams, Jr.

SKETCHES FROM A CHRONICLE

On Friday 8 April, I went to see the Martha Graham Dance Company. I think this is the fourth time I've seen the company live, and the second since Martha Graham has died. The company seems to be in sturdy hands now with dancers who are ecstatic to have the chance to pray in the Temple of Martha. (Of course there are Martha's in other lands, but it is such an American name [Martha Washington, Martha Stewart, Martha in Who's Afraid...] and Martha Graham insisted upon creating an American concert dance.)

I didn't read the program so I didn't know that the piece "Sketches" was a response to the Spanish Civil War, though I did learn it premiered in 1936. I wanted to be left to a more contemporary interpretation of the dance. In the last section, four groups of dancers in black, attend to, ignore, and reflect the movement of a dancer in white who is restricted to move only atop a podium that like a Olympic platform has three levels. The dancer in white moves independently of them, but without the pleasure of uniformity and synchonicity that the dancers in black express. The struggle for these dancers is to recognize the force that the dancer on the podium embodies, and this becomes the story of the dance. The dancer in white/the dancer on the podium: she is the sacred in society, the medium, an artist or a priestess who has to be acknowledged deeply in order for the culture to gain cohesion; she is not a person or character but a force at the creative core of culture. The tension between the groups is absorbing but frustrating and seemingly endless but, finally, it moves into a harmony at the end when the dancers in black form a circle around the dancer in white. She raises her arms slowly over head, so strongly, with such resistance and determination, like the eternal diva, triumphant and expressive, finally completely recognized.

Of course, an intensely melodramatic piece, but my face became wet because in our America (an America in which Martha's are jailed) there is no dancer on the podium, there is nothing at the core, no flame at the center (and virtually no funding for the arts). And we are at war, endlessly.

Death Pope

Just because he died doesn't change the fact that he reinforced outdated sexist and homophobic orthodoxy. He criticized the greed of capitalism, and spoke of the poor, but what exactly did he do to try to change such inequality?

As with the death of Reagan, the mainstream media loves to turn the deceased into a heroic, universally loved figure. Its a lie.

The local cable news channel has been doing almost nonstop coverage of the Pope. When they begin their segment they use a new broadcast title that is badly designed. The words Death and Pope are in large font and the words "of a" are virtually unreadable due to the font and size. It reads "Death Pope."

One of the reporters who was covering the Papal Illness for CNN described how the Vatican provided new information on the Pope's condition to reporters. First, they text messaged all the reporters, informing them to check their email. Then the reporters would check their email and sure enough there would always be a letter from the Vatican, the last one of course describing the pope's death. The Vatican used the Pope's worsening condition, and the latest communications technology, as a way of gathering up the mainstream media's attention, hence the title: Death Pope.

I'm Back

Terri Schiavo:

1. No one can agree how her name is pronounced. Its Skiavo...
2. She was the ultimate helpless female, damsel in distress par excellance--and the religious right wanted to play the hero, rescuing her from the oncoming train (of death). And the media desperately wanted to televise this narrative, rooting for the law to intervene to resume her enforced life. Shame on Jesse Jackson for trying to use this event to get his name in the news! Shame on the mainstream media for drooling at the story! Shame on Congress for trying to extend their authority. Thank Goddess for the courts.
3. As F declared if Schiavo had been a known abortionist who performed late term abortions, those right wing freaks would have been shooting at her. Or if she had been a lesbian trying to get married, they would have been secretly chanting "pull the plug on the bitch."
4. Since Pres. Bush was governor of TX and his brother is currently governor of FL, they are both mass murderers due to the wanton use of the death penalty in both states. They lie when they repeat they believe in a "culture of life." They are natural born killers. (To say nothing of the war dead in Iraq)
5. As Wahday and I remarked last night, the right wing wants us all brain dead, like Schiavo. This is their "culture of life." Force fed lies that only barely keep you alive in country where you are not ensured health care with no hope of consciousness.

iPod log

Yesterday I took the L train from Bedford St to 1stAvenue. There were eight iPod users in the car, two were carrying guitars. They nodded to each other. Another's head was moving to the music. Six men, two women. Similar shaggy Williamsburg hairstyles.

Letter to the New York Times

The irony of President Bush advocating freedom in all nations was completely lost on the Times' editoralist of January 21. The administration of President Bush has unnecessarily curbed personal freedoms in this country, refused to allow international human rights monitors access to detainees, decided that the principles of the Geneva convention may be obsolete, and suggested that women should not be ensured of reproductive rights. Bush's talk of freedom is akin to an arsonist speaking of fire safety.